Animals
Here’s how honeyeaters and other birds thrive on sugary diets
Birds that feed on nectar or fruit evolved better mechanisms for managing metabolism, blood pressure and high glucose.
Animals
More Stories in Animals
- Life
An African monkey ate a rope squirrel and came down with mpox
Fecal analyses and necropsies suggest a fire-footed rope squirrel was the source of a 2023 mpox outbreak among sooty mangabeys in Côte d’Ivoire.
- Animals
Intricate silk helps net-casting spiders ensnare prey in webs
Rufous net-casting spiders can tune the stiffness and elasticity of their webs thanks to loops of silk, scanning electron microscope images reveal.
- Health & Medicine
This itch-triggering protein also sends signals to stop scratching
The TRPV4 protein’s dual nature, found in studies with mice, may complicate the hunt for human itch treatments
- Paleontology
A mouth built for efficiency may have helped the earliest bird fly
A flexible tongue, sensitive beak and teethlike cones in the mouth may have helped Archaeopteryx generate enough energy to fly.
- Animals
Some dog breeds carry a higher risk of breathing problems
Research reveals more short-snouted dogs besides pugs and bulldogs that struggle with breathing. Pekingese and Japanese Chins topped the study's list.
- Animals
Regeneration of fins and limbs relies on a shared cellular playbook
The findings strengthen the case that regeneration is an old trait, offering insights into how complex tissues rebuild themselves.
- Animals
How tracking golden eagles in Nevada revealed a desert ‘death vortex’
Something is stopping Dry Lake Valley’s golden eagles from reproducing and killing raptors that fly in to fill the void.
- Animals
Some snakes lack the ‘hunger hormone.’ Experts are hungry to know why
The complex biology of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, has researchers wondering how its absence helps snakes last a long time with no food, if at all.
- Animals
A sea turtle boom may be hiding a population collapse
In Cape Verde, conservation has boosted the sea turtle population 100-fold — but the male-female balance is way off.
